The dwarfs had a very odd look. They weren't strolling about or enjoying themselves (although the cords with which they had been tied seemed to have vanished) nor were they lying down and having a rest. They were sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another. They never looked round or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and Tirian were almost near enough to touch them. The the dwarfs all cocked their heads as if they couldn't see anyone but were listening hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.
"Look out!" said one of them in a surly voice. "Mind where you’re going. Don’t walk into our faces!"
"All right!" said Eustace indignantly. "We're not blind. We've got eyes in our heads."
"They must be darn good ones if you can see in here," said the same dwarf whose name was Diggle. …
"Are you blind?" said Tirian.
"Ain't we all blind in the dark!" said Diggle.
"But it isn't dark, you poor stupid dwarfs," said Lucy. "Can't you see? Look up! Look round! Can't you see the sky and the trees and the flowers? Can't you see me?"
"How in the name of all Humbug can I see what ain't there? And how can I see you any more than you can see me in this pitch darkness?"
"But I can see you," said Lucy. "I'll prove I can see you. You've got a pipe in your mouth."
"Anyone that knows the smell of baccy could tell that," said Diggle. … "Who are you anyway?"
"Earth-man," said Tirian, "she is the Queen Lucy, sent hither by Aslan out of the deep past."
"Well if that doesn't beat everything!" exclaimed Diggle. "How can you go on talking all that rot? Your wonderful lion didn't come and help you, did he? Thought not. And now – even now – when you've been beaten and shoved into this black hole, just the same as the rest of us, you're still at your old game. Starting a new lie! Trying to make us believe we're none of us shut up, and it ain't dark, and heaven knows what. … Well, at any rate there's no humbug here. We haven't let anyone take us in. The dwarfs are for the dwarfs."
"You see," said Aslan. "They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out."
From "The Last Battle", C.S.Lewis
